Luke 2:1-14
December 24, 2000
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church of San Francisco.
By now, December 24th, most of us are finished with our Christmas shopping. If not, you still have about 12 hours left at Wal-Mart! You have spent many hours if not days trying to figure out what may be the right gift for the people you love. Finding the perfect gift has taken you to the malls, thumbing through pages of catalogs, and scrolling up and down on E-Toys. These are the perils of gift giving.
Now comes the real test. In less than 24 hours, you and I will face the perils of gift receiving. Giving the right gift to someone is a challenge in itself. But it takes greater courage to be the person who is able to receive Christmas gifts in just the right way.
Garrison Keillor of Prairie Home Companion fame writes about a time when he received from someone dear to him a Polo shirt for Christmas,
“I said thank you, of course, and put it on, and tried to look pleased, but what I
was thinking was, “Burgundy?” In my experience, burgundy shirts are worn by
guys who smoke cigarillos, drive Buick LeSabres, sit in the dark corners of
cocktail lounges and place wagers on basketball games. I’m more of an oatmeal type person.
But did I turn to the giver and say, “Sorry, I’m an English major and we don’t often wear this color?” No. I put it in a special section of my closet where I keep never-to-be-worn clothes. After the three-month-Christmas-gift cooling-off period required by law, I gave the shirt to a shelter for the homeless.”
Garrison Keillor continues and imagines a homeless person coming into the shelter and saying,
“You wouldn’t have something in a pale green or aqua would you? Just because you’re homeless doesn’t mean you look good in burgundy.”
A Christmas gift represents somebody’s theory of who you are, or who they wish you were. The gift may tell very little about who you are. But it tells a great deal more about who some other person thinks you are, or wants you to be.
Now some of you have noticed that I have some very nice looking ties. My ties look good because Joy buys them for me. She wants me to dress nice. Now if I had my way, I would be wearing blue Oxford shirts and a tie with little dots on it! It’s the college professor look. But Joy thinks that I should look less like J. Crew and more like Kenneth Cole.
So tomorrow morning will be the toughest day of the Christmas season for you and me. We will be opening up gifts in front of the giver. And you may find yourself shocked or stunned by what you receive. What can you say? All you do is sit there and exclaim, “Oh! Look at this! How interesting! Who would have thought?”
You can’t tell them what you’re really thinking. Namely, “What on earth have you done? What do you think I am? Are you crazy?”
You take the gift, you put it wherever you put such gifts, and then, in the spring when a goodwill non-profit comes around, you are able to offer a superb piece of merchandise, still in the box, still unwrapped. Sounds familiar?
It is these kinds of perils of gift receiving that led Garrison Keillor to say,
“There is, for each person, a perfect gift, your heart’s desire, and nobody
can give it to you except yourself.”
I can see what Garrison Keillor was trying to get at. He wants to avoid the perils of gift receiving. But I don’t agree with him. The reason why Garrison Keillor is wrong is found in the fact that we are gathered together on this expectant eve before the world’s brightest day. Someone else does know the perfect gift for your heart’s desire.
What I Want is Not What I Ought to Have
Is it true that the best gift that can be given is the gift you give yourself? Is it the best because it is a gift that you really want? Trouble is, many of the things that I want are not the things I ought to have. I cannot be trusted to draw up my own gift list, can you? I tend to be dishonest about myself, deceitful about who I really am and ought to be.
When we invite our kids to make up their Christmas lists, they don’t get everything they want. Not everything will be under the Christmas tree because many of the things that they want may not be the things that are good for them. As parents, we sort the things out on their wish lists. We try to only give the things that would contribute and enrich wholesome living.
The Gift of Christ
Christmas is the time when Christians gather to celebrate a great gift given to us. Unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given. God decided that this is the gift we need. Do we want this gift?
Our Scriptures today remind us that the birth of Jesus was not seen by all as a great gift. First of all, when the birth of Jesus was announced to Joseph, he was thrown into deep confusion. Then an angel told Mary that she was going to have a baby out of wedlock. This was not what Joseph and Mary wanted.
When the shepherds were working late into the night probably dozing off under the twinkling stars, the angels frightened them. “Fear not! Do not be afraid,” they said. A message that is supposed to bring great joy to all people first brought fear. This was not what the shepherds wanted. They didn’t want to be disturbed.
During this time, many in Judea thought they needed a military genius to come in, raise up an army, and run the Romans out. That’s what they thought they needed and wanted. They wanted a revolution to overthrow the oppressive Romans. These revolutionaries did not want a little baby.
Then there were others who wanted the expected gift of some great religious leader. Someone who would stick to religion and stay out of politics, someone who quoted just the right verse of Scripture, who had sweet, uplifting sayings that might help everyone feel better and to adjust to his or her situation of captivity. After all, isn’t this what religion is for, a bit of inspiration and uplift? Religion makes us feel better about our situation without fundamentally changing it. These people wanted someone to tell them what they wanted to hear. But that was not the gift they received.
The gift they got was Jesus.
The Gift We Need
Sometimes we do get gifts that we didn’t expect or necessarily want. But if we stop for a minute and give some thoughts to the reason that may have been behind the gift, we come to appreciate and maybe even enjoy the gift.
One year in Pennsylvania, I received an electric chain saw for Christmas. I didn’t ask for it. When I opened it, I was surprised and a bit displeased that my family bought me something that expensive. Eventually I returned it thinking that I would not have that much use for it to justify its existence in the garage. Was my family trying to tell me something? They saw how I struggled trimming the many trees around our house. And they wanted to make my task easier. If I waited a bit longer before returning it, I would have realized that it was a gift I needed. The reason for the chain saw was a gift of love. It was not a gift of extravagance. You see, it was not a gift I wanted, but it was the gift I needed.
Sometimes others are much better suited than you to know the gifts that are really your heart’s desire. Sometimes, what you think is your heart’s desire really isn’t.
I think that’s what happened to us at Bethlehem in the gift of the Christ child. We got our heart’s desire. But we got our heart’s desire not in the form in which we expected, or even wanted. We got a baby.
We live in a world that is tough with raw force—that worships power and prestige. What we wanted was someone who can match up to all this brute force. What we got is a baby—vulnerable, gentle, meek, and mild.
And when that baby grew up, he became for many even less of what they wanted. He spoke biting, challenging words to the establishment. He challenged many of our conventional notions about who God was and what God wanted. He called us forth from our smug securities toward a life of high adventure and rebellion.
Even at the end, particularly at the end, even after he had been with us for a number of years and we’d heard his teaching and seen his work, we rejected this gift. We took God’s most precious gift and nailed it to a cross, rejecting the gift.
Still, God kept on giving, and keeps on giving today.
The Skill of Receiving the Gift
There are many skills that are required to be a faithful Christian. You have to know something about the Bible, need to be able to find your way around the Scripture. You need to know something about what the church has taught through the ages, how to think like a Christian. You need to have the will and consistency to act like a Christian.
But on this day, we are reminded that one of the qualities required of Christians is the ability to be able to be surprised by the gifts God gives us. We need to expect that God will send gifts our way that we did not ask for or expect, gifts that perhaps we did not want, but gifts that we really need. You see, God knows us more than we know ourselves.
We know of families whom God has given very special children. The world might label these children as “disabled” or “handicapped.” Maybe that’s what they thought when they first received their new babies. And yet, in time, they came to call these children special—gifts. These gifts required many changes in their lives. But looking back, they say that these were changes they needed to make. They are better people this day because of these unsought, unexpected gifts.
I know that this past year some of you have received many challenges and difficulties that you did not desire. Some of you have had health crises. Some of you have gone through a period of great distress and trauma. Now, in many of these cases, I would be the last person to speak of such difficulties as “a gift.”
However, by the grace of God (the word, grace means gift), even some of our worst difficulties can be transformed and seen as gifts.
I have heard people speak of cancer as a gift. It was certainly not something they wanted, but through the grace of God, even something so frightening and difficult as this, helped them put their lives in perspective, drew their family closer together, brought out the best within them.
Jesus is the Gift
On Christmas day in the little town of Bethlehem, we receive the gift of Jesus Christ. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. The reason behind God’s gift of the Christ child is out of love! God knew that we need his love. God loves you and me.
In Bethlehem, we received a gift we did not expect or ask for, but yet a gift that changed us and is still changing the world and us.
This gift would bear the government on his shoulder and we will call him “Wonderful Counselor.”
This gift would be a prince, unlike any worldly princes. He would be a “Prince of Peace.”
This gift would be a disturber of the status quo, a critic of the religious establishment, one who would call people to help him turn the world upside down. He is the “Mighty God.”
When I get up tomorrow morning and try to meet the challenge of gift receiving from my family, I may discover that it’s not the gift I ask for or expected. But I will be able to appreciate why they gave me that gift. You see, they often know me better than I know myself. From their gifts, I may be able to grow and learn something new about myself. I might discover how interesting life really is from the unexpected gift.
So we celebrate Christmas today with God’s gift of the Christ child to the world. We are not the ones who can give ourselves the best gifts that our hearts desire. The gifts that we really need come from a loving God.
This day has been born to us a child, a Savior, whose name is Jesus. He is God’s greatest gift. Jesus is the one who, though we did not desire him, is a sign of God’s great desire for us. So today God is facing you giving you his gift. Would you receive his gift, the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger who is Christ the Lord?
“For a child has been born for us, a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor,
Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace and goodwill among
all people.”
Merry Christmas!
Let us pray.
Dear Lord, we thank you for the gift of Jesus Christ and willingly and eagerly accept your gift for our lives and for the world. Bless us with the openness to receive unexpected surprises throughout our lives so that we may know your plan for us. May this beautiful season of Christmas remind us of your greatest love for all your people. In the name of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, we pray. Amen.